A month earlier then-Australian prime minister <\/strong>Mr Rudd had proposed a Resources Super Profit Tax, which would have taxed so-called “super profits” reaped by mining companies at 40 per cent.<\/p>\n The mining industry immediately mounted a furious campaign to kill or water down the tax \u2014 a campaign that succeeded in part in July 2010, when the new Gillard government replaced it with the smaller Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT).<\/p>\n Millions more ‘Epstein files’ released by US government<\/a><\/p>\n The US Department of Justice says it is releasing more than 3 million new documents from the “Epstein files”.<\/p>\n Companies including multinational miner Xstrata (later combined with Glencore) continued to campaign against the MRRT and it was repealed in full by former prime minister Tony Abbott’s Coalition government in 2014.<\/p>\n Emails in the dump date from mid-2010, about two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution<\/a> and soliciting a prostitute.<\/p>\n A June 8, 2010, email from Lord Mandelson encloses an email dated the previous day from Xstrata’s then-boss, Mick Davis, discussing the campaign and his company’s suspension of more than half a billion dollars in spending planned for two sites in Queensland, the Ernest Henry gold, copper and silver mine and the Wondoan coal project.<\/p>\n “The announcement resulted in widespread media coverage as the most definitive evidence to date of the impact of the Resources Super Profit Tax,” Mr Davis told recipients of the email, whose details have been redacted by the DOJ.<\/p>\n “The overall tone of the coverage reflected many commentators’ view that this announcement marked a turning point in the debate and attention turned to the impact of the tax on jobs and mining communities.”<\/p>\n Mr Davis also complained of an “ill-informed” editorial published by British newspaper the Financial Times and said Xstrata was “directly attacked by the Australian prime minister”.<\/p>\n Xstrata was acquired in 2013 by Glencore, which later retired the Xstrata brand. (The Business)<\/p>\n He said he sent Mr Rudd a letter in response, but the letter is not attached to the copy of the email published in the Epstein files.<\/p>\n Lord Mandelson’s email to Epstein also appears to have been initially written for a wider audience.<\/p>\n “Mick Davis’s email to you touches on where this is going next: a compromise,” Lord Mandelson wrote in the email.<\/p>\n He advised building “the broadest possible coalition” to oppose the tax.<\/p>\n “You do not want to turn it into an issue of ‘who governs Australia’, the voters and their elected representatives or the mining companies,” he wrote.<\/p>\n Lord Mandelson suggested ultimately settling for a compromise that would see the industry “making a greater contribution to society”.<\/p>\n “In a negotiation, you obviously don’t want to start with what you will settle for. Equally, you don’t want to be so minimalist that it is hard or impossible for the govt (sic) to come to the negotiating table,” he wrote.<\/p>\n He suggested veteran Australian business figure Rod Eddington “could act as quiet honest broker”.<\/p>\n It is not known whether Epstein had any financial interest in Australian mining at the time.<\/p>\n Glencore is a Swiss trading and mining company with diverse mining operations in Australia. (Reuters: Arnd Wiegmann)<\/p>\n Files suggest Lord Mandelson sought Glencore role<\/p>\n However, the DOJ document dump also shows that Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg appeared to want Lord Mandelson to become chair of the commodities group, which merged with Xstrata in 2013.<\/p>\n In a July 16, 2010 email, Mr Glasenberg told Lord Mandelson he would “be having a meeting with our partners next week regarding our IPO and you joining the company as the Chairman in the public company”.<\/p>\n Ivan Glasenberg was Glencore’s CEO from the early 2000s until 2021. (ABC News: Virginia Tapp)<\/p>\n The South African billionaire thanked Lord Mandelson for sending him a copy of the peer’s newly published memoir, The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour, as well as a “detailed note” about why he would be a good chairman.<\/p>\n In that email, sent the same day, Lord Mandelson touted his experience in government and said that at age 56, he was keen “to re-tool myself to one major opportunity”.<\/p>\n “But the more specific value I believe I can bring to Glencore is a knowledge of politics, government and regulatory trends which are going to have more and more bearing on a company like Glencore,” he said.<\/p>\n “In the coming decade and beyond, business is going to have to face a lot more government attention and interference. It’s inevitable and we can see it coming.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lord Mandelson’s links with Epstein have long been controversial in Britain.<\/p>\n He resigned from the UK Labour Party on Monday following a report in the Financial Times on documents in the DOJ dump showing he was sent money by Epstein from as early as 2003.<\/p>\n The documents show he received 75,000 British pounds ($147,538) from Epstein in three payments between May 2003 and June 2004, either directly or through his partner.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Lord Mandelson told the Financial Times he had no record or recollection of receiving the payments and did not know if the documents were authentic.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/d3948aa65ca9044f24ebb5ad4520339b.jpeg\")
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